Nomad
by Novacaine Nightingale
Summary: Aaron Livesy is living out the zombie apocalypse, nomad-style. He's all on his own and honestly, he prefers it that way. Everyone he ever knew or cared about is dead. He's living for nothing, surviving for the sake of surviving. Then, out of nowhere, some blonde asshole decides to rob him blind and, well, that can't stand.
1. Aaron

The gravel bites into the skin on Aaron's arm. To think, he only rolled up his sleeves because of the heat, and now he has to deal with this shit.

The zombie hovers above him, its rotted face barely three inches away from his own. Its maniacal jaw clatters together, trying to reach him, completely devoid of flesh. It wants him. It hungers for him. In a strange way, he's flattered.

Struggling to hold the creature back with his left arm, his right hand scrambles around, trying to grab a hold of the knife he keeps tucked in his belt. The zombie groans, a sound that's not only creepy as all hell, but extremely dangerous. The hungry growls from one of them can signal others nearby, and the last thing he needs are more shambling over while he's still in this compromising position, unable to defend himself.

Finally his hand brushes the hilt of the blade, and he draws it, not hesitating before reaching up and jamming it into the creature's skull. It slices through the rotted flesh, pierces the softened bone, and straight into whatever's left of the brain. The zombie slumps forward, lifeless.

Grunting, Aaron heaves the corpse onto the ground beside him.

Blackened blood stains his knife. He rubs it along his pant leg, trying to clean it as best he can, before slipping it back into place.

And so he moves on, continuing down the gravel path that he had been walking down before that thing got the jump on him. Usually he's so good at keeping an eye on his surroundings, but he let himself get distracted. He was thinking about his mum, which is not a good thing for him. He can get lost in that subject entirely should he open the door.

He can still remember the window shattering that morning, the both of them tiptoeing down the stairs, him with a bat in hand, thinking someone broke into the pub. What they found when coming through to the bar, however…

No, he can't get sucked back in. Not now. Not _ever_.

He only now notices that the sun is setting, which means he'll have to find somewhere to settle in for the night. The nights are the worst part of this whole _global apocalypse_ thing. At least during the day he can press on, walking toward whatever will cross his path next, but at nighttime? He has to rest, to sleep, and hope that he won't wake up to his insides being chomped on by the undead.

Of course he takes precautions, but all it'd take is for him to sleep too deeply, enough to miss the noise, and that'd be it for him. Game over.

He finishes stringing up the last of the cans a good while later. Cans, with holes poked through them with a rusty screwdriver, then strung together and put up in nearby bushes and trees, in a complete circle around whichever small area he plans to sleep that night. He doesn't light fires, it's too risky. He just strings up his cans and nestles in under a tree or beside a bush, somewhere that he can't be spotted easily, and risks sleeping. He's only had a few undead stumble across him at night, and he usually takes them out right away. All in all, in a world where everything's dead, he considers that especially lucky.

The tree he picks to sleep under tonight is especially comfy, for a tree. He falls asleep really fast, and dreams more vividly than he has in ages.

"Aaron, let's just call the police. Come on!" His mum urges, tugging his arm. "Put the bat down before you get yourself hurt!"

"Oh quiet, mum," he whispers back, reaching the bottom of the stairs. "It's them that's going to be getting hurt."

She clearly wants to protest further, but before she has the chance, he moves down the hall and out into the bar. The first thing he sees is the front window, shattered, glass strewn about the floor. He doesn't see anyone, though, not a soul. The car alarm blaring somewhere off in the distance should've been his first sign that something was wrong, something way more serious than a simple robbery.

"There's no one here," he whispers, looking around. The bogs are locked at night, and the doors seem to be intact, at least from where he's standing. "Mum, there's no one here!" He calls back.

She steps out from the hallway, her eyes locking in on the mess. "Ah hell. They couldn't just pick the lock like anyone else, could they? It's going to cost a _fortune_ to get that window fixed."

Aaron watches as she walks around the bar. Something moves off to the side of his vision, a shadow slinking up from that side of the counter. He doesn't think, he just reacts. He lets out a muffled _fuck_ as he jumps forward and swings the bat, hitting the intruder square in the head. Not hard, but enough to send them right back down on their ass. Like they'd get away with trying to hide!

"Oi!" He shouts, throwing one leg over the bar and hoisting himself over. "Did ya really think that'd work? You—" His sentence cuts off as he sees the person sprawled out on the floor. They twitch for a few seconds before slowly moving, climbing to their feet, their movements jerky and… wrong. But what really sends Aaron for a loop is seeing the man's neck, bent to the side at an unnatural angle.

And then the man's standing, looking right at him, with glassy, empty eyes.

"What the—"

"Aaron…" He feels his mum grab his arm, trying to pull him back, but he can't move. He's frozen in place. The sight before him is so jarring that it's sent him into some form of shock. He doesn't even notice the gash in the man's shoulder, with dried blood staining his shirtsleeve.

" _Aaron!_ " His mum shouts this time.

The man steps forward, his entire upper body swinging from the movement, as if he barely has any control of what his muscles are doing. Seeing that is the kick Aaron finally needs to snap back to life.

"Mum!" He grabs her arm and together they move back around the bar and through the door. They run straight into the back room, slamming the door behind them.

Aaron leans against it, breathing hard.

"What _was_ that… that… _thing?_ " He breathes, clearly shaken.

His mum is busy dialing 999. He can see her silhouette because of the pale morning light coming through the curtain. Other than that, the room is dark.

"The line's busy," she mutters, hanging up and dialing again.

Suddenly, Aaron hears something. The sound of something clanking together. It's faint, but slowly getting louder.

He glances around in confusion. "Mum, do you hear that?"

But his mum doesn't look up. It's like he hasn't even spoken. Instead, she just keeps dialing, shaking her head in frustration and trying again, all while that clanking noise is getting louder, and drowning out the sounds of his mum on the phone.

" _Mum_ —"

His eyes fly open. The clanking sound is really loud now. He jerks up, reaching for his knife. It's the cans. Something's trying to walk through the cans.

With his back to the tree, he plants his feet in the dirt and pushes, hauling himself completely up with one swift motion, his knife in hand and ready to attack the first dead thing that moves.

What he sees instead is a bunny, its leg caught up in the strings that tie the cans together.

"You've gotta be fucking kiddin' me…" He mumbles, stepping forward. All it takes is one cut from the knife to set the bunny free, and the cans slump back into place, silent.

 _At least it didn't seem to draw any zombies here with all that racket_ , he thinks to himself bitterly. The sun is coming up on the horizon, the sky turning green above him. He might as well eat a little bit and then pack everything up so he can set out.

The backpack he carries around with him is olive green. He got it as a "present" from his best friend, Adam. His _old_ best friend. He has to be dead now, which warrants past tense in Aaron's book. It's sad, but just another thing he refuses to think about, like that dream last night. If he pretends it didn't happen, and that his subconscious clearly isn't out to get him, then everything will be fine. He has no choice but to hold himself together. He can't let his grief shake him up.

By the time the sun is fully up, he's back on the road, or rather, the same gravel path he was on yesterday. It's long, clearly some kind of biking or hiking trail. He doesn't really know where he's going. After his hometown was overrun, he had no choice but to leg it. Everyone had either driven off or been killed. There was nothing to stay for.

He took one of the cars from his uncle's garage—having to step over said uncle's mangled corpse to get to it, which was _fun_ —and drove. He drove and drove and drove, listening to the radio. According to the stations that were still actually on air, this was happening everywhere, and nowhere was safe, especially not the cities. He'd seen enough movies to know as much anyway.

Not that those movies really prepared anyone for this. The world had seen hundreds of zombie movies and yet everything still went to hell almost instantly.

Eventually, the car crapped out and he had to make a go of it on foot. It's been a few weeks now, with him wandering the wilderness, basically taking care of himself. He's only passed through a few towns on his travels. The first one he came across was only a couple days after leaving the car behind, and there was a big group of people holed out there. They offered for him to stay, and he did for a while, but left when things got too intense for him. That group argued too much over things to ever last this out.

The next town he stumbled across was completely deserted. There weren't even that many zombies about either, but in the end he'd left there too.

The third town had too _many_ zombies, so he split from there pretty quick.

It's just been him and this path for a couple days now, and other than the random zombie here and there, it's been pretty clear.

Of course, all that changes the second he rounds the next bend and spots the path in front of him open up, the tree line effectively ending. Beyond that, he notices as he draws closer, are houses. A town. It doesn't appear that big from here, but that means nothing. Who knows how many roads there are over the hill. This place could potentially be a death trap.

It helps that there aren't any undead in sight though. Maybe, if he's quick, he can sneak into a couple of the closest houses, look about for some food and supplies, and then loop around the whole town through the woods as to avoid any hordes.

It _seems_ like a solid plan.

It could also get him killed.

Then again it's not like he's got much left in the way of rations. A can of beans and half a carrot is really the bulk of his remaining supply. He's been working in leaves from bushes and trees too just to space out the actual food. It's really disgusting.

So yeah, going into this town might get him killed, but if he runs of food he'll definitely die, so it's the lesser of two evils. At least this way he'll have a chance at surviving a little longer.

To be honest, he has no real idea what he's surviving for. Is he hoping for rescue? Not really. Does he think the world will somehow recover from the zombie plague? Probably not. In fact, he really doesn't have any hope of things going back to normal ever. He's kind of just surviving for the sake of surviving. He doesn't know what else to do.

Nothing jumps out at him as he makes his way along the path. It comes out from the forest and down between two houses, ending at the road.

He decides to hit up the house on the left first, for no reason other than its painted blue, and he likes that color a lot. He hops over the fence into the backyard and sneaks up the back porch, carefully pushing open the sliding back door. It's not locked.

The inside of the house is dark and quiet. A quick scan of the kitchen and the rooms that immediately surround it proves that there aren't any zombies around. If there are any upstairs, he'll hear them before they make it down to him.

Aaron immediately opens the fridge. A big mistake, seeing as everything in there is covered in mold. Shutting it just as quick, he moves to the cupboards, finding boxes of stale cereal and a few cans of peaches. He shoves the cans in his pack and empties the cereal into a plastic bag he finds in a drawer.

It's as he's deciding whether or not he wants to take a box of crackers with him that he hears something: A creak. It's faint, but it's loud enough for him to pause his search. He reaches for his knife and draws it, setting down the crackers and quietly moving towards the kitchen door.

The next room is a small dining area, which was clearly used more for storage than for family meals. The table is covered in boxes that are in turn coated in dust.

Another creak, this time closer. It's not him, because he's standing perfectly still, but he's not sure if it's a zombie of not. If it was, surely it'd be making more noise? It could be an animal, but that's just as dangerous, because it might knock over something and draw attention to the house.

The living room is pretty dark, but there's enough light coming in through the curtains to see what he's doing. He creeps toward the window and peaks out, and what he sees sends a shiver down his spine.

Zombies. A lot of them. Maybe fifteen or twenty, all out on the street. They're spread out, just standing around mindlessly, but he knows that they can come together quickly enough to be a major threat. And those are just the ones he _can_ see. There are probably a lot more in the neighboring houses.

 _Okay, I'll just grab the crackers and go. Screw the other house, I'm gone_. All he has to do is go back out the kitchen door and then straight into the forest, and it'll be like he was never here.

Aaron turns around, and his stomach promptly collides with someone's fist.

He stumbles back, landing on the floor, the air knocked out of his lungs. He struggles for breath while reaching for his knife, which slipped out of his hand during the fall and skittered across the floor. Before he can reach it, a foot steps down on his hand. Not hard, but enough to stop him from trying again.

He glances up, the light from outside providing just enough to see the end of a gun pointed right at his face.

"Give me the bag," a voice says.

"W-What?" He chokes out, but it's getting easier to breathe again. "Sod off."

"Give me the _fucking_ bag!" The guy's voice is getting louder now.

Aaron stares at the gun for a long moment. The angle he's at mixed with the light coming in from the window prevents him from seeing the guy's face, but the gun is clear.

Glaring, he slowly leans forward, and shrugs his backpack off his shoulder, tossing it onto the floor between them. He stares into the darkness where he imagines the other man's eyes are the entire time, refusing to look away.

"If you shoot that," he says as the man leans down and reaches for the bag, "then those fuckers outside will be on this place in a second. You won't get out of here alive."

Aaron watches as his bag is snatched away into the darkness, and for a split second, he can make out blonde hair.

"Then I'll just have to be fast, won't I?" The man replies, and Aaron can practically feel the superior smirk leaking into his tone.

The man steps back, and the gun vanishes. It's now or never. It's stupid and impulsive, but what's the apocalypse for if not risking it all?

Aaron jumps up and lunges forward into the darkness. There's so much potential for error here, but none of that matters, because if he doesn't get that bag back, then he's dead anyway. Luckily for him, he manages to grab the guy, and the two go tumbling onto the floor.

Aaron slugs the man in the face, but this guy's just as quick and jerks his knee up straight into Aaron's crotch. He groans and nearly doubles over, but the adrenaline rush he's getting from this fight helps him push through it. He punches the guy again and grabs his stupid blonde hair, lifting his head up and smashing it back down onto the floor.

The man spits and it gets in Aaron's eye, disorienting him for a split second, but it's long enough for the guy to shove Aaron off him. He lands on the floor and scrambles to his feet, but the other guy's done the same.

Aaron sees the silver color of the gun flash for a split second before it fires. He tenses, waiting for the pain, but it doesn't come. Instead, the man dives out the door and runs down the hall. Aaron looks around, stunned, and sees a bullet hole in the wall behind him.

A bunch of shadowy hands begin hitting against the window across the room. Undead groans fill the air. It seems that he was right. Firing that gun did tip off the creatures outside.

He breaks into a run. He's only been standing there maybe five seconds, but it's given that prick enough of a head start. Aaron bolts through the dining room, the kitchen, and then into the backyard again, just in time to see the guy's blonde head disappear over the fence.

He continues running, hopping over the fence as fast as he can, and stops once he's over. He can't see the man at all. He might've run into the forest, but it seems a bit far away, and there's no way he'd have gotten far enough into the bush that Aaron wouldn't be able to see him now.

Which means he probably doubled back around the fences and is sneaking through another house to avoid the horde that he so _gracefully_ alerted.

Life is about choices. Aaron made the choice to drive in his car until it ran out of fuel, and decided to go into nature after it did. He made the decision to leave that group in that one town and keep going on, nomad-style. He chose to enter this town and loot for food.

Now, he can either choose to go back into the forest and loop around this god forsaken hell hole town like he originally planned, hoping that maybe he'll be able to search another house on the other side, _or_ he can go chasing after that asshole who just robbed him blind.

He thinks about Adam, his old friend, and how he ended up with that backpack after a mix up at some concert. Adam was drunk, brought it home by accident, and once he figured out it wasn't his, emptied it out and threw it at Aaron, telling him to keep it "as a present." They'd laughed, and Aaron made some quip about it being cheap, and then threw it in his bedroom, where it sat for, god, _years_ , until the day the world ended.

And just like that, Aaron makes his decision, because now he's certain of one thing.

He can't—he _won't_ —lose that backpack.


	2. Robert

The zombies are all focused on the blue house, which is great because it allows Robert to creep across to the red one next door, completely unhindered by their presence. He might just make it out of this yet.

The backpack weighs a ton. He hasn't had a chance to look through it yet, but it's clearly stuffed, because his shoulder is starting to protest carrying it. He knows his body will adjust to lugging the weight around, but until then it's going to be a bitch-and-a-half.

Making a play for the bag was a gamble. He was looking around when he heard the kitchen door slide open. Not sure what it was, but banking on the fact that the undead don't have the motor functions to open doors like that, he assumed that he was dealing with a fellow living person.

He peeked around the corner every few seconds, trying to gauge the situation. The people he had ran into up until that point had been less than friendly, that's for sure, and he didn't want another run in with someone that wanted to kill him.

Instead what he saw was the outline of a man, more of a darkened silhouette against the light flowing in from the sliding door. The man vanished from sight, and Robert could hear him rummaging through the cabinets.

Robert silently cursed himself. He had been planning to do just that, only he was saving it for last. He wanted to check the other rooms in the house for useful things first, and then go through the kitchen. That way if his kitchen search ended up making some unintended noise, he'd have the chance to slip out the back door before the zombies outside could burst their way in through the front windows.

He was trying to play it smart. Instead, he lost his chance.

In his defense though it wasn't like he had any reason to think for a second that someone else would show up at the exact same house at the exact same time. The odds…

The thing about Robert is that his temper can be lethal. Before the world came to an abrupt and bloody end, he was known for not being someone to mess with. The lengths he'd go to in order to get his way were morally grey at _best_. That's not to say he was reckless with his methods, but he definitely knew how to get the job done, whatever that job may be and by any means.

The point is that when tested, he can be pretty dangerous. Even more so when he's aggravated or pissed off. And right then? He was mad. He was mad because he was losing out on the food in that kitchen, food that _he_ desperately needed. The worst part, the part that absolutely made his blood boil, is that it was his fault. He could only be mad at himself. It was his decision to search the rest of the house first, and it was because of that choice alone that allowed the other man to swoop in.

He wasn't sure what he was going to do. He could give into his anger and attack the man, hoping that maybe the element of surprise could give him an advantage. Of course that also ran the risk of him losing. He could just have left, but what then? Find another house? He would have had to wait for the other man to leave anyway, since he was blocking the back door and the front one opened up to a street full of the undead.

Robert's decision was made for him when he shifted his weight and the floor board underneath him creaked. All sound in the kitchen stopped, and he knew that he had made a mistake. The man was coming. He listened, still and silent, as the man's footsteps walked through the dining room, and then into the living room. At that point, only a wall was separating Robert and this stranger.

It was then that Robert dared lean over and take a look. What he saw was the man moving toward the front window, and suddenly the gun in Robert's back pocket felt heavy. He could never shoot it, not if he wanted to get out of here easily, but the other man probably wouldn't want to risk that either.

That's when Robert saw the backpack.

And the rest, they say, is history.

The red house is less cluttered than the blue one. The general layout is the same, but the person who used to live here clearly kept the place well organized. The dining room was clearly well used, for its intended purpose, and if it wasn't for the thick layer of dust on everything then it'd probably look like it did pre-apocalypse.

Of course the illusion is shattered when Robert finds the reanimated corpse of the house's owner.

She's in the living room. Her blonde hair is matted with blood and her face skin is rotting away, allowing her sharp cheek bones to peak through. In life, it's what probably made her quite attractive. In death, it makes her all the more stomach churning. Her body lays on the floor, rotten fluids staining the carpet as she tries to drag herself over to Robert. Her legs are on the other side of the room, dismembered and limp.

Without a second thought he pulls out his small knife and stabs it straight through the top of her skull. She falls still after that.

Now, he just has to get out of this house too. Maybe, if the zombies are still focused on the other house, he can slip out the front door and run across a few lawns. He can't go out the back door again because that guy is most likely still hanging around, if not already looking for Robert.

He glances out the front window. The blue house still has a good supply of undead in front of it. He can't see if they've gotten inside, but they're crowding it intently. A quick glance along the rest of the street shows no other zombies in sight. All the ones on the road were attracted to the gunshot. The rest, if any, are inside the houses, trapped.

Robert slowly pulls the front door open. Even if they notice him, he has a whole driveway's worth of distance as a head start—

Something slams into Robert from behind. He flies forward, landing on grass, and rolls a few feet. His head is foggy now, throbbing in the back. Did he bang it on the way down? He can't remember. It all happened so fast, so suddenly.

Whatever it is, it's on top of him now, and for a split second Robert feels pure fear grip his heart. _This is how I die_ , his brain screams, waiting to register the pain from the bite that's surely coming.

Instead, he feels his torso being jerked to the side, and the backpack being ripped off of him.

"That's what ya get, _mate_." A voice growls. It takes Robert a second, but he recognizes it as the man from before. The blue house man.

Robert opens his eyes. His vision is a bit screwy, but he can see the man clear enough because he's _right there_ , hovering above him, straddling his waist so he can't wriggle free. This is the first time that Robert's seen him in the light, and there's something odd about him. A prick of familiarity that he can't quite grab onto because his head is throbbing.

Before he has a chance to say something back, the man's eyes shift up, and widen the slightest bit. He jumps to his feet after that, and that's when he spots something on the ground. Robert turns his head to the side just in time to see the man grab his gun. It must've fallen out when he rolled across the grass.

The man jogs away, backpack and gun in tow, leaving Robert with nothing.

That's when the groaning registers.

The zombies from the blue house have noticed them. Robert stands up just in time to see them shambling across the driveway, no more than ten feet away from him.

Not knowing what else to do, he turns and runs in the same direction as the man, who's now a few yards away.

Maybe it's because he banged his head, or maybe it's because this town is reminding him so much of his own hometown, but as he runs he can't help but have flashbacks to when the world ended.

He was shacked up in his fiancé's flat. They'd been in there all weekend, a merry-go-round of movies and cigarettes and sex. Robert had never been a big smoker, but for some reason it felt right after sex with Chrissie. They were so wrapped up in each other that when the world started to stop, they didn't even notice.

It was only when the streets outside the flat began to unravel that they took any notice. The police sirens, the screaming, the explosions in the not-so-far distance. At that point it was impossible to ignore. Society was coming apart at the seams. They could only stay blind for so long.

Chrissie wanted them to go and find her father. Her son was staying with him and she desperately wanted to be with them. Robert almost went with her, but in the end he decided that he needed to return to his hometown, to try and find _his_ family. They might not be the closest lot, but when the world ends you tend to forget all the petty squabbles that caused you to drift in the first place.

And that's how he found himself driving into town just in time to see his sister ripped apart in the middle of the street. She screamed, reaching out for his car, as her blood and intestines spilled out of her and onto the pavement. It's an image he'll never forget. It haunts his dreams, sometimes.

He drove through town as best he could, trying to see if he could spot anyone alive. He didn't. There were only corpses and blood. So much blood. At one point he saw another car speeding out of town in the opposite direction from him, but that was about it in the way of life. He hightailed it out of there after that.

He drove for a long time. That came to an end, however, when a zombie stepped out into the road in front of his car and he slammed into it. The shock caused him to lose control of the wheel, and he careened into a pole at the side of the road.

Sitting there, in what remained of his car, he cried. Blood trickled in through the cracked windshield as his tears fell. He'd had a really bad day, okay?

He's been on foot ever since.

Robert's lost the other man. He snaps out of his thoughts just in time to notice that he's completely out of sight. He stops running and glances around. He's on a sidewalk now, and there's nothing undead immediately around him. A glance behind him shows that the zombies from before are _really_ far back, but still close enough to become a problem if he doesn't get moving again.

The street he's on is a long one, transitioning from homes to small businesses about partway down. He's currently standing beside a place called _Kiki's Eatery_.

His head feels less foggy now, which gives him the chance to properly access his situation. There's a horde of zombies back down the road, and even though there are none right around him, there will definitely be some in the buildings nearby. He needs to find his way out of the inner town and back toward the edge, by the forest. At least there's cover there. Being anywhere that used to be heavily populated is a _bad_ idea.

But he can't just run into the forest, not unless he wants to be eating leaves for the next god-knows-how-long.

He has to find some food. He has to get some supplies in general. And since he's lost track of the man who stole from him (even though Robert robbed him first), he has to start from scratch, even if that means sticking around this hellish town for a little bit longer.

He passes _Kiki's Eatery_ , sliding by it slowly, glancing through the front windows to make sure there's nothing inside that'll see him. Then he does the next place, and the next, continuing his path down the street. It might be stupid to do it this way—hell, every movie he's ever seen advises against it—but he sees no other way to keep moving. Even if he finds an alley or cuts through more yards, there's no surefire way to get anywhere safely.

He makes it to the corner without anything popping out to bite him. Unfortunately for Robert, that's where his luck runs out.

Because remember how he thought before that staying in highly populated areas is a bad idea? It is. And he has the gigantic mob of undead creatures standing around the corner to remind him of that.

He takes a sharp breath and slowly inches back around the corner. That doesn't help though, because the second he turns around, he can see the zombies from the blue house still moving in this direction. Whether they see him or they don't (he's not really sure what the vision on zombies is like), they're still moving this way. He's trapped.

The shop he's standing in front of is called _Katherine's Kakes_. _Original_ , he thinks to himself and reaches for the door. Locked. He moves onto the next building: A place that served smoothies. That door is unlocked, and he slips inside, making sure to lock it behind him.

It takes him a minute to scan the shop for zombies. It's not very big, a front area for the customers and a back area for the staff. There's no one here, dead or alive, except for him. The curtains on the front window are closed, so now all he has to do is sit tight until the horde from the blue house moves on, and then he can slip back out.

Robert uses this downtime to search through the place for anything useful. A woman's purse is stashed underneath the front counter, so he decides to use that until something better comes along. The smoothie ingredients are toast, all perishable and rotten beyond reproach. There is a package of biscuits in the back though. They're stale, but he'll make due.

The lowest point of Robert's life is when he fishes out a half bag of crisps from the bin. If only his past self, accustomed to the finest foods, could see himself now. _Well, you do what you have to do to survive. Especially these days_ , he thinks to himself as he tosses one of the hardened crisps into his mouth.

And that's when a door, a door that Robert hadn't even really taken notice of before now, opens up, and the man who robbed him walks though.

Robert kicks into action, his new purse banging against his side, and reaches for his knife.

The man notices him too and freezes, his hand moving toward the gun tucked inside his belt. Robert's gun.

They stay like this for a few beats, just staring at each other.

It's the other man who speaks first. "Small world."

Robert glares slightly. "Seems so."

Another beat.

"How about you don't draw the gun, and I don't pull out the knife, and we don't fight each other again. I don't think either of us wants to repeat what happened last time." Robert tries to sound as calm and reasonable as possible.

The other man doesn't respond, he just glowers, his hand still hovering over the gun on his belt. Robert keeps his hand hovered too.

"My name's Robert. We don't have to kill each other here."

The man smirks. "Pretty sure I'd be the one doing the killing, mate, seeing as _I_ have the gun."

Robert notices the man's hand shift a bit, and Robert matches it accordingly. "Yeah, you're right, you'd probably kill me. But then what happens? The exact same thing that happened last time. This place get swarmed, by a much _larger_ horde, might I add, and you get eaten. The way I see it, neither of us would be getting out of here alive."

The man's glare doesn't leave his face, but his hand does move away from the gun entirely. If there's one thing Robert's good at, it's bullshitting his way out of a sticky situation.

With the dead, everything's black-and-white. You can't reason with them, you can't talk them out of doing what they're going to do. But with people? People are easy.

"Aaron."

Robert looks up, confused. "Excuse me?"

"My name. It's Aaron."

"Oh."

 _Aaron_ walks across the room, stopping near the counter.

"I already searched this place," Robert says, "there was nothing here but some stale crisps, and they're mine." He purposely omits the bit about the biscuits.

"And that purse, obviously." Aaron nods to the bag hanging at Robert's side. "You didn't have that earlier."

A small smile plays along Robert's lips. "What can I say? Fuchsia's my color."

Aaron rolls his eyes and ducks down behind the counter, apparently not letting Robert's words dissuade him from checking for himself. Robert instead focuses on the door the other man came through.

"Does that lead into _Katherine's Kakes_?" He asks.

"Yeah," Aaron's voice rings out from behind the counter, accompanied by the sound of shuffling objects. "I locked the door when I went in, but these two places are adjoined. I was just coming through to do the same in here when…"

"When you found me." Robert finishes for him. "I take it there's nothing left in there either?"

"Nope."

Robert crosses his arms and leans against the wall, thinking. If he can distract Aaron long enough to get the gun, then he can swipe the backpack back. But then Aaron will just chase him again… unless Robert actually kills him this time, but if he shoots the gun, the undead will descend upon this place and eat them both. Maybe there's something else here, something that'll work just as well, but do it more quietly...

"You're not going to get it."

Robert glances over at the counter as Aaron stands back up.

"W-What?"

"The backpack. You're not getting it from me. I'll shoot you and kill us both before I let that happen again."

"Why do you think I was even—?"

"Because you're opportunistic. You've proved that. And I can see it in your eyes, you're trying to come up with a scheme. I'm not an idiot. We might be forced into a truce right now, but that doesn't mean I trust you."

Robert stares at Aaron for a long moment.

"I think I know you," he says at last.

Aaron's face is full of confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"I feel like I know you. You're familiar. And I don't just mean from today, I mean from… _before_."

"We don't know each other," Aaron replies firmly.

"I felt it before, when we were in front of the red house, on the grass. You seemed familiar but I couldn't figure out why. Where are you from?"

"That's a little personal innit?"

Robert scoffs. "The world is full of flesh-eating corpses and you think telling me where you're from is going to, what exactly?"

Aaron shrugs, conceding. "I'm from a town called Emmerdale."

Robert tries not to look surprised, even though it's what he suspected the answer was going to be. "Same here."

Now it's Aaron who looks surprised.

Robert shrugs, echoing Aaron's words from before. "Small world."

"What's your last name?" Aaron asks, something clearly on his mind.

"'That's a little personal, innit?'" Robert's mocking tone causes Aaron to glare again.

"Just answer the question."

"Robert _Sugden_."

Aaron's eyes widen a bit, and then he looks away. Robert definitely knows that something's up now, because he's not an idiot either.

"What is it?" He asks.

Aaron smiles a bit, staring at the floor, still avoiding Robert's gaze. "I was kind of… with your sister, for a time."

"Oh." The last thing Robert needs right now, or ever, is to be reminded about his sister. Because when he thinks about his sister all he can see is her final moments, swirling around on a loop in his head. "She's gone now."

Aaron nods, slowly. "I figured. The entire town was overrun by the time I got out."

"I know, I saw. I drove through. That's how I knew about… I _saw_ …" Robert's voice trails off. He can't find it in him to actually say the words, to describe—even a little bit—what he saw when he was last in Emmerdale.

Aaron jumps up on the counter and slides over, walking slowly until he's standing right next to Robert. He awkwardly pats him on the shoulder. The gesture is clearly meant to be comforting, but Aaron's struggling with it. "I'm sorry."

Robert looks at him, the surprise clear on his face this time. "Not worried I'm going to try and steal your backpack again now that you're close to me?"

Aaron smiles at him, _genuinely_ smiles at him. It causes Robert's stomach to flip a little bit. Not much, but just enough for him to notice.

"Nah," Aaron replies. "I don't think you're that stupid."

The two sit in silence after that. Aaron goes into the back room to look for supplies, and Robert goes into the cake shop for a while to do the same. There's a weird understanding between them now. Before, Robert was looking for any way to get the advantage on Aaron, but now? Now he doesn't really want to. Both men are from the same place, they knew the same people.

In an apocalypse, the chance of them meeting like this had to be slim to none. Rare. A miracle. And yet here they are, together. It almost makes Robert feel less scared. Not that he'd ever admit he's scared, but how can one not be, in the zombie apocalypse?

The pair end up staying the night. Aaron sleeps in the cake shop and Robert sleeps in the smoothie place. Bond or no bond, there's still no real trust between them. Each man secures their side of the door to make sure the other doesn't sneak in during the night and take something, or worse.

They talk again in the morning, once the sun is mostly up.

"Where do you think you'll go now?" Robert asks.

Aaron shrugs. "No clue. I've been winging it this entire time, following the rural trails and such. Less chance of being mobbed that way. You?"

"I think I'll stick around town for a bit. I need more supplies." Robert responds.

"How did you end up with nothing anyway? There's no way you've gone this whole time without food. You had to have had a bag of your own at one point." Aaron can't help but look at the purse still attached to Robert's side.

Robert nods. "A few days ago, I was staying in this old apartment building, top floor. I'd been there for a while and nothing bad had happened. But I guess there was a zombie in one of the nearby apartments and it finally got out somehow, made its way to the room I was staying in. It caught me by surprise and I ended up stabbing it… and its body fell on top of my stash. Its insides got _everywhere_. I couldn't risk eating any of that food after that, so I had to move. I'd already raided the other floors, so I just… left. Ended up here. The house you found me in was my first attempt at scavenging."

Aaron slides his backpack over his shoulder. "You know… if you need some help searching some houses, I've got nothing better to do."

Robert raises an eyebrow. "You're offering to help me?"

Aaron shrugs. "Do you not _want_ my help?"

"No, no. I do. Of course I do. I'm just surprised."

"Don't get the wrong idea," Aaron says as he walks toward the front door of the cake shop, unlatching the lock once he gets there. "We're not friends. I don't even really trust you. But…"

"But you've got nothing better to do," Robert smiles, trying not to look like a smug asshole. He fails.

"Yeah."

Robert walks up to the front door too, glancing through the glass once just to make sure the road is truly clear. It is, at least on this side. If they get out of here without making a sound and go back the way they came, there's no reason the horde around the corner ever has to know they were here.

"Who knows, maybe we'll find some gorgeous women on the way." Robert adds.

Aaron snorts. "I'll remember to hope for that if I stop being gay."

Robert would have stared at Aaron for a long time if he didn't pull open the door right after saying that.

The two of them make their way down the sidewalk, moving quickly and low to the ground, so nothing inside any of the shops will see them.

Robert can't help but feel lucky. He and Aaron's strange alliance started off badly, but now they're helping each other out, even if it is for no reason other than they lived in the same town. It's the first time since he parted ways with Chrissie that he hasn't been completely alone in the end of the world.

And no matter what comes next, at least for a little while, he'll have someone. That person may not even really like him, but it's still something.

There's a strange comfort in that.


End file.
